Something Solid: Aughts Philly: Dresser

 

It wasn’t real, was it, or maybe it was, us,
there, together in bed, as though you were
Mary, as though we were married, as though
you could be her, that person, generating
domestic sweets for your old man, he gnarled
after a long day of fighting in the world, ready
once again to prove potency against oppressors
who would have us cold, limp, silent, faded
in that beige-walled bedroom, lifted above
the rest of the apartment, wooden dresser catching
your eye to show up later, in a painting not related
to me, also there as someone only partially related to me,
searching the world as your own scout for signs of
visible life, the dresser livelier than me, its grains, fronts—